Israel Expands Offensive, Moving Into Central Gaza

GAZA, Wednesday, July 12 — Israeli troops moved in force into central Gaza early Wednesday, expanding a two-week-old Israeli offensive intended to release a captured soldier and stop rocket fire into Israel.

Just after midnight, scores of tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored bulldozers, covered by Apache attack helicopters and armed drones, crossed into central Gaza near Kissufim.

Clearing roads and firing tank shells, the troops have moved about 150 yards southeast of the town of Deir al Balah, into the neighborhood of Abu Alajeen, residents there say.

At least one Palestinian, a member of the official security forces, died in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops, and another was wounded, according to a Palestinian journalist living in Abu Alajeen, as the sound of tank shell explosions made him difficult to hear over the phone.

About 3 a.m., there was an Israeli airstrike on a house owned by a local Hamas leader in the Sheik Radwan district of Gaza City, residents said. Six people were killed, including a mother and four children living on the top floor of the house in which Hamas leaders were meeting, Shifa Hospital said. The army said that it believes that it wounded the commander of the military wing of Hamas, Muhammad Deif, in the attack, but a Hamas spokesman told Reuters that report was “totally incorrect.”

In the south, Israeli forces advanced from positions near Abassan north toward Abu Alajeen.

Israelis are also interrupting local radio stations to broadcast a warning in Arabic that “the Israeli Army is going to continue its operation in the Gaza Strip until the captive soldier is released.” The broadcast says: “Israel is interested in your well-being. Is this the welfare that Hamas promised you?”

The message warns Palestinians not to allow militants to fire rockets into Israel.

Militants tried to fire makeshift rockets toward the Kissufim border crossing as a column of dozens of armored vehicles and hundreds of soldiers pushed into central Gaza, but the rockets appeared to fall short, Reuters reported.

“Our main target is the terrorist infrastructure — the rocket crews, the gunmen, the arms caches,” said an Israeli commander who was not allowed to give his full name, according to a pool report.

“But of course we are here to show that if, God forbid, any of us is captured by the enemy, the army will do everything to secure his return,” he said.

The army confirmed only that its troops had entered central Gaza. The Israelis want to ensure that the captured soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, is not moved out of Gaza. He was captured on June 25 during a raid into Israel.

After news conferences on Monday by Israeli and Hamas leaders repeating their positions — Hamas demanding a prisoner exchange and Israel rejecting any bargaining with Hamas — it seemed inevitable that Israel would step up its military campaign, which had slowed after troops pulled out of northern Gaza after taking over parts of the town of Beit Lahiya.

On Tuesday, the Israeli government had given the military authority to broaden its operations in the territory and pilots carried out a new round of airstrikes, mostly directed at militants in the north who are firing rockets into southern Israel.

Photo

Israeli forces moved farther into Gaza, crossing at Kissufim.Credit
The New York Times

Also, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, lashed out at the United States, saying it had been working with Israel to undermine the Hamas-led government, which was elected in January.

“Our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House,” Mr. Haniya wrote in an op-ed article in The Washington Post. He said the current Israeli offensive was the “explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel.”

The Palestinian leader also wrote that “if Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be able to enjoy those same rights.”

On Tuesday morning, an Israeli strike killed one Palestinian militant and wounded several more, according to residents in the area. The missile attack took place near Beit Hanoun on a vehicle loaded with rockets traveling to a launching site, according to the Israeli military.

The local head of Fatah’s Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Abu Ghazal, managed to escape the vehicle unharmed, a group spokesman said.

The Israeli Air Force also knocked out the remaining span of a bridge in northern Gaza that militants have used to transport rockets, the Israeli military added.

Overnight, the military said it arrested 18 suspected Palestinian militants throughout the West Bank.

The Israeli news media reported Tuesday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had approved plans to broaden the operation in Gaza.

Israeli troops in the north are trying to stop the rockets, but after two days of heavy fighting last week, the ground forces have pulled back. In southern Gaza, Israeli armored vehicles and troops have taken up positions in and around the Palestinian airport, which has not been used for years.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, met Tuesday with King Abdullah II in Amman, Jordan, and claimed that the Israeli military was targeting civilians in Gaza.

King Abdullah said he would appeal to the Israelis to end their offensive, according to a statement.

Two more Palestinians died Tuesday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing while waiting in the heat to cross back into Gaza. According to Egyptian officials speaking to news agencies, two teenagers died: a boy, 18, from heatstroke and a girl, 19, who had recently undergone surgery in Egypt.

The Rafah crossing has been closed for two weeks, and some 4,000 people are waiting there, according to the United Nations. The Red Cross said 578 of those waiting were “urgent humanitarian cases.” Israel has offered to let them into Gaza through a different crossing, Kerem Shalom, which means going through Israel. But the Palestinian Authority has refused, saying there is an international agreement allowing direct travel between Gaza and Egypt.

Israel insists that it tries to avoid civilian casualties, but says the Palestinian militants operate from heavily populated areas.

More than 50 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli offensive began. Most of the dead have been militants.

Steven Erlanger reported from Gaza for this article, and Greg Myre from Jerusalem.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel Expands Offensive, Moving Into Central Gaza. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe